Page 138 of Theta

"Aw god, Killy. I love you too."

"I knew—the second I felt that syringe poke my neck, I knew that my life was going to change. I just…I had no clue how much."

"Killy—"

I kiss her quiet. "Shush, baby, please. Just…just let me get this out.”

"Okay." She nuzzles my cheek and kisses my cheekbone. "I'll just do this, then." She kisses me softly, everywhere—lips, chin, ears, eyes, cheeks, jaw, neck, throat, chest, forehead, endless soft loving kisses as I fumble for the right words.

"You're everything to me, Story. You're my past, my present, and my future." I swallow a hot lump, panting as my eyes burn and my heart crashes in my chest. "I just…I fucking love you. I don’t remember a time I wasn’t in love with you. I’ll love you until the end of time."

"Killian?" Her voice shakes.

I bring the object out, open it one-handed. It's a tiny box of crushed red velvet; the velvet is old and faded to a sheen.

Story gasps as the light catches the diamonds within—the ring is not really anything super special to look at. It's a simple, small, square-cut diamond, maybe half a carat at most, with three tiny diamonds to either side. But then, it’s not the financial value of the ring that makes it so important.

"It belonged to your mother," I say, my voice soft. “Your birth mother, I mean.”

A brief, fraught silence follows my statement.

"Killy, you mean…"

"After…what happened…" I say, hedging around getting too deep into the emotional minefield of the mall shooting, “Selah somehow managed to get a hold of this. I have no idea how, and she didn’t say—there wasn't time."

She sits upright and reaches for the ring box—I let her take it, and she holds it in both cupped palms, staring at the engagement ring nestled within with an extraordinarily complex set of emotions on her face; I can read the onslaught of emotions cascading and shredding through her like shrapnel in a tornado.

"There was a lot of confusion in the weeks after the shooting,” she says. “It's all super vague and hazy to me now—I was really young, after all. I ended up at a temporary foster home for a few weeks. I had nothing—none of my stuff. I never got any of it, actually, and I've never had anything of my birth parents’, either. I don't know how Mom ended up finding me. I just remember sitting on a front stoop, waiting for I didn’t know what with a trash bag full of hand-me-down clothes and a raggedy old stuffed owl one of the other foster kids gave me so I'd stop crying all the time. The sidewalk was cracked and humped from a tree root; I remember that.” Her voice is distant—remembering. "I hated that house—I don't know why. I just remember hating it. And then this awesome Wrangler pulled up. I remember the tires were big and knobby and the wheels were super shiny chrome. Mom got out, and I just remember thinking very clearly, ‘Wow, she's so beautiful. I wish I could be as beautiful as her someday.' And then she came right up to me and crouched in front of me, and she asked if I remembered her."

"Did you?"

She nods. "Yes, of course. At that point, she was the only thing I could remember clearly. My brain had blocked everything else out, I was told later. The rest—or most of it, at least—came back later through therapy. All I could remember at the time was Mom, Selah, I mean, taking care of me.” A pause, a shaky breath. “She sat down next to me and she asked if I wanted to go live with her forever. I couldn't believe it." She looks at me, then. "She's had this the whole time?”

I nod. "Apparently. I guess she was waiting for the right time to give it to you, and decided that this was it."

She frowns. "By way of you?"

I gently take the box back, and pluck the ring out. "Well, yeah. I asked your dad for your hand, after all."

Her eyes snap to mine. "Killian…what?"

Sitting cross-legged and naked on the bed facing her, I take her left hand and kiss her ring finger. "Will you marry me?"

A bark of shocked laughter bursts out of her, and she claps a hand over her mouth. "You asked Dad for my hand in marriage?"

I snort. "Yes, Story." I pause. "Didja miss the question?"

"No! I mean yes!" She covers her face with both hands, lets out a steadying breath, and then gives me a long, loving look, extending her hand to me. “Sorry. Yes, Killian Harris. Of course I'll marry you."

I slide the ring on her finger—it's a tight fit over her knuckle but then loose once it's past.

"When did you ask him?” she says, holding her hand out so the light catches the diamond.

“Just before we left. I packed and asked one of the guys to bring the boat around while I got supplies together. And then I went to their villa and sat them down and asked Anselm for your hand in marriage."

"I bet they were confused."

I laugh. "Not at all. Your mom burst into tears, ran off, and came back with that. Said she brought it down on a hunch."